NASA published an image on Aug. 17, 2026, combining data from its Chandra X-ray Observatory, James Webb Space Telescope and Hubble Space Telescope to show 30 Doradus, also known as the Tarantula Nebula. The image is dated Aug. 11, 2026. The nebula sits in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small neighbour galaxy to the Milky Way about 160,000 light-years from Earth, and contains thousands of young stars embedded in a honeycomb-like structure of gas and dust.

According to NASA, astronomers using data from Chandra, Hubble and Webb, together with data from the agency's retired Spitzer Space Telescope, determined that the Tarantula may be losing energy from several sources, including hot gas escaping from the nebula. The finding was described as a possibility rather than a confirmed conclusion.

Image credit is given to X-ray: NASA/CXC/Ohio State Univ./J. Rodriguez et al; infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; optical: NASA/ESA/STScI; and image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/P. Edmonds.